Bristol and the Indian Independence Movement

BRISTOL BRANCH OF THE HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION
LOCAL HISTORY PAMPHLETS
Hon. General Editor: PATRICK McGRATH
Assistant General Editor: PETER HARRIS

Bristol and the Indian Independence Movement is the seventieth
pamphlet to be published by the Bristol Branch of the Historical
Association. The author, Dr Rohit Barot, is a Lecturer in
Sociology in the University of Bristol.

The photograph on the outside front cover is of the great Indian
reformer Raja Rammohan Roy who died in Bristol in 1833. One
of his friends, Miss Castle, had commissioned H.P. Briggs to make
a full-size portrait of him in 1832. This was presented to the City of
Bristol Museum and Art Gallery in 1841. It is reproduced here by
kind permission of the Museum and Art Gallery. A marble
monument in the style of a Hindu Temple was also designed to
commemorate Roy. This was the work of William Prinsep and it is
to be seen in Arnos Vale Cemetery to which Roy’s remains were
removed. The photograph was taken by Dr Barot. Photographs of
Sukhsagar Datta were kindly supplied by Mr David Datta.

The Bristol Branch of the Historical Association wishes to
acknowledge a generous grant from the Publications Committee of
the University of Bristol to help with the cost of this pamphlet.

The next pamphlet in the series will deal with the Bristol police
force in the the later nineteenth century.

A list of pamphlets still in print is given on the inside back cover.

The publication of a pamphlet by the Branch does not necessarily
imply the Branch’s approval of the opinions expressed in it.

The Historical Association is a national body which seeks to
encourage interest in all forms of history. Further details about its
work can be obtained from the Secretary, The Historical Associa-
tion, 59A Kennington Park Road, London SE11 4JH.

ISBN 0 901388 53 X © Rohit Barot

BRISTOL AND THE INDIAN
INDEPENDENCE MOVEMENT

Although the formation of groups and associations among Indian
people in Britain is often seen as the product of postwar labour
migration to this country, Indians have in fact been visiting and
living in Britain from the eighteenth century onwards, and when
movements for Indian independence arose in the nineteenth
century, Indians here had a very important contribution to make.
It is the purpose of this pamphlet to examine the connection
between Indians and Bristol with special reference to the remarka-
ble careers of two men: Raja Rammohan Roy who died in the city
in 1833 and Dr. Sukhsagar Datta who lived and worked in Bristol
from just before the First World War until his death in 1967.!
As Rozina Visram has shown, Indians began to appear in
Britain from the eighteenth century onwards as domestic servants,
soldiers and sailors, but in the nineteenth century those who came
to Bristol were primarily drawn from middle classes.” The East
India Company had introduced a wide range of economic, politi-
cal, educational and cultural changes into eighteenth-century
Bengal, and there emerged from a number of dominant groups of

1. This study is part of a research project entitled Migration, Social Change and
Voluntary Associations among South Asians in Bristol. I would like to thank
the Economic and Social Science Research Council for a research grant
(G00/23/2374) which supported this investigation. I am thankful to Anthea
Sanyasi for making it possible for me to learn about Dr. Sukhsagar Datta. My
special thanks are due to both Mr. David Datta and Dr. Albion Ajitkumar
Datta for providing me with a rich body of information on their father’s life
and to Dr. Jyoti Berra for preparing a biographical sketch of Dwijadas
Datta’s life for this study. For comments on this revised manuscript, I would
like to thank Professor Michael Banton and participants of Sociology section
of British Association for the Advancement of Science meeting where this
paper was first presented in 1986.

2. Rozina Visram, Ayahs, Lascars and Princes : Indians in Britain 1700-1947,
1986 London, Pluto Press, p.304.

ve

Re if ae bir: ss
4

Hindu origin a complex group which came to be known as
bhadralok or respectable people.* The most prosperous and
property-owning section of this group (abhijat bhadralok) consti-
tuted “one of the most important agencies for change in nine-
teenth century Bengal”. There was a lower stratum (grihastha
bhadralok) drawn from “large shopkeepers, small traders, small
landholders, and white collar workers in commercial houses and
government offices, teachers, ‘native doctors’, journalists and
writers”.*

The great Indian reformer Raja Rammohan Roy who came to
England in 1830 was one of the most remarkable of these middle
class Indians. He came to Bristol in 1833. A brief outline of his life
and of those of his followers who came to Bristol will illustrate not
only the effect of social change in Bengal but also the way in which
such people increasingly accepted a rational and scientific outlook,
a process which created much tension between the old order and
the new.

Born in the family of a prosperous Brahmin landlord in Radha-
nagar village in the Burdwan district of Bengal in 1772, Roy was to
make his mark as a critical thinker and a progressive reformer. As
an able and keen student, besides his native language Bengali,
Roy mastered Persian like his forefathers in order to qualify for
government service and English when it superseded Persian as a
language of the British Raj. He also studied Sanskrit to study the
Vedas and Upanishads, Arabic to study the Quran, Hebrew to
study the Old Testament and Greek for examining the New
Testament. He also travelled as far as Tibet to learn something
about Buddhism. As for his vital interaction with the British in
Bengal, he worked as a secretary to John Digby, the East India
Company Collector of Rangpur (1804-1814). Through this
employment, as William Theodore de Bary notes, Roy “acquired
a remarkable fluency in the English language, and rose as high as a
non-British could in the Bengal Civil Service. His success as an
administrator and an assured income from landed estates enabled
him to retire at forty-two and settle permanently in Calcutta, then
the political and intellectual capital of India”.°

3. S.N. Mukherjee, ‘Class, Caste and Politics in Calcutta 1815-38’ in Edmund
Leach and S.N. ,Mukherjee’s (ed.) Elites in South Asia, 1970 Cambridge,
p.dd:

4. Ibid., p.50 & 60.

5. William Theodore de Barry (ed.), Sources of Indian Tradition Volume II,
New York, p.19.

After his return to Calcutta in 1815, Roy took an active interest
in both education and reform. In 1823 when the Company
government decided to establish and support a new college for
Sanskrit studies, Roy was greatly shocked. In the debate between
those who supported traditional oriental learning as opposed to
those who favoured introduction of modern European knowledge
in India, Roy was very much in support of modern education
which was to be a key factor in the modernisation of Bengal. In a
letter of petition he sent to Lord Amherst, Governor General in
Council, expressing his concern about a considerable sum of
money the government had set aside for instruction of Indian
subjects, Roy said “We were filled with sanguine hopes that this
sum would be laid out in employing European gentlemen of talent
and education to instruct the natives of India in mathematics,
natural philosophy, chemistry, anatomy and other useful
sciences”® — a view which expressed the Bengali middle-class
interest in modern education. He played an important part in the
establishment of Hindu College in 1816 and also founded an
English school of his own which trained middle-class Bengali
children some of whom were to become leading dignitaries in
Bengal and India. As a publisher of a Bengali and a Persian
Weekly, Roy also vigorously campaigned against the Press Ord-
inance which the British authorities introduced to control
publishing after the English editor of Calcutta Journal had
criticised a government appointment. The editor was asked to
leave India and the Privy Council rejected Roy’s petition on this
matter in 1828.’

Roy also opposed the traditional Hindu practice of worshipping
many gods and goddesses. Using his knowledge of ancient Hindu
texts Vedas and Upanishads, Roy argued for one supreme being as
a basis of reiigion. He publicised this view in his first book Tuhfatul
Muwahhidin and criticised the traditional idol-worship of the
Hindus as well as the Christian doctrine of the Trinity. Roy’s belief
in one supreme being eventually led him to form a modern
religious movement called Brahmo Samaj in 1828.°

6. Ibid., p.41.

7. D.S. Sarma, Studies in the Renissance of Hinduism in the Nineteenth and
Twentieth Centuries, Benares, p.686. Especially see Chapter 2 ‘Ram Mohan
Roy and the Brahmo Samaj’, p.86 et al.

8. Fora brief account of Brahmo Samaj, see J.N. Farquhar’s ‘Brahmo Samaj’ in
James Hastings’ (ed.) Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, Volume 2, 1909,

4

Having been influenced by modern ideas, Brahmo Samaj chal-
lenged centuries-old social and religious traditions among the
Hindus, especially in rejection of the caste system. The orthodox
Hindus opposed Brahmo Samaj, as the father of Dr. Sukhsagar
Datta was to find out in the later part of the nineteenth century. As
a great Indian reformer, Roy is best remembered for his vigorous
campaign against the Indian practice of burning the widow on her
husband’s funeral pyre, the custom of suttee. When Roy’s sister-in-
law became a suttee, Roy was deeply shocked and resolved to
campaign for the abolition of what was increasingly recognised as
an inhuman custom. Although the orthodox Hindus opposed
abolition, Roy was eventually successful in his crusade when Lord
William Bentinck abolished suttee by law in 1829.

After his reforming campaigns against suttee, caste and idol
worship, he notes in a letter to Mr. Gordon “I now felt a strong
wish to visit Europe and obtain by personal observation, a more
thorough insight into its manners, customs, religion and political
institutions”.? Apart from this general curiosity, he had three
particular reasons for visiting England in 1830. First, the charter of
East India Company was going to come up for discussion and
renewal. Roy wanted to influence this discussion as the new
charter was to have long term effects on Indians and their future
government. Further, orthodox Hindus had opposed the law
abolishing suttee in 1829 and their appeal against it was going to be
heard before the Privy Council. Roy was keen to ensure that the
appeal was turned down. Thirdly, the titular Mogul Emperor
Abu-nasar Muinuddin Akbar had asked him to press for an
increase in his annual emolument. To pursue these aims, he sailed
from Calcutta on 15 November 1830 on board the Albion bound
for Liverpool along with his son Rajaram and two servants
Ramrattan and Ramhare. He reached England on 8 April 1831.
During his long stay in the country, he met many dignitaries,

Edinburgh, pp.813-824. Also Sivnath Sastri, The Brahmo Samaj : Religious
Principles and Brief History, Calcutta, 1958, Sadharan Brahmo Samaj, p.45,
and Hem Chandra Sarkar’s The Religion of the Brahmo Samaj, 1911 (1931
Edition), Calcutta, p.75.

9. See Appendix A in Mary Carpenter’s (ed.) The Last Days in England of the
Rajah Rammohun Roy, 1866, p.255. See also pp.246-255. This volume is an
important source of information about Raja Rammohan Roy’s time in
England.

including the King at whose coronation he was assigned a seat.
When the renewal of the charter of East India Company came up,
he was invited to appear before a Select Committee to present his
views on India. He also witnessed the Privy Council rejecting the
appeal against the abolition of the suttee. The East India Company
raised the annual allowance of the Mogul Emperor, and Roy had
been successful in fulfilling his aims.

Rammohan Roy came to Bristol in early September 1833 to visit
his Unitarian friend Dr. Lant Carpenter. As he made a deep
impression on Lant Carpenter’s daughter Mary Carpenter, she
became interested in India and Indians and was to attract many
Indian visitors to Bristol during her lifetime. Roy stayed at Beach
House, Stapleton Grove (now Purdown Hospital) with Miss Castle
and Miss Kiddell.‘° He worshipped at Lewins Mead Meeting
House where a plaque commemorates the fact that he had
preached there. In her description of last days of Roy’s life in
Bristol, Mary Carpenter provided a detailed and touching account
of his illness and death. Soon after he fell ill, Dr. Estlin of Park
Street recognised that he suffered from meningitis and in ten days
time Roy died on 27 September 1833. His friends and Indian
servants saw him buried at Stapleton Grove. The association
between Roy and his final days in Bristol is permanently enshrined
in Bristol. Miss Castle had commissioned H.P. Briggs in 1832 to do
a full-size portrait which was presented to City of Bristol Museum
and Art Gallery in 1841 by her aunt Miss Kiddell. This magnificent
portrait of Roy is now on permanent display at the Museum. An
associate and staunch supporter of Roy was Dwarkanath Tagore,
the grandfather of Rabindranath Tagore, and a wealthy landlord
who visited Bristol in 1843. He arranged to transfer the remains of
his guru from Stapleton Grove to Arnos Vale cemetery in Bristol.
Dwarkanath Tagore then commissioned a designer William Prin-
sep to erect a marble monument in the style of a Hindu temple as a
permanent memorial. In the later part of the twentieth century,
this memorial was to acquire significance as a site where Indians
would go on a day-long pilgrimage on every 27 September to
remember and honour this great Indian.

In describing Roy as “the greatest creative personality of
nineteenth century India”, Percival Spear argues that Roy’s public
activities from 1813 to 1830 “laid down the main lines of advance

10. Ibid., p.113 et al.

for what was to become the Indian national movement”. As for his
response to the West, Percival Spear adds “His attitude towards
the West was neither that of surrender, withdrawal or conflict. It
was one of comprehension. The new world from the West was not
to be a substitute but a supplement to the old. Synthesis, which is
different from syncretism, was his remedy for the predicament of
Hinduism. The instrument of synthesis was reason, the principle
he found enshrined in the Upanishads. A Hindu could accept the
moral rationalism of the West because real Hinduism was both
moral and rational”. This process of synthesis, as Percival Spear
explains, “provided the rising westernised class with just that
bridge between their new and old mental worlds which they
needed”.1?

In the latter part of the nineteenth century, Bristol attracted
many young Bengali visitors. Several of them like Dwarkanath
Tagore were followers of Roy. Bristol Unitarians, Mary Carpenter
in particular, invited educated Bengalis to Bristol!” often assuming
that Christian influence on the Indian elite would pave the way for
the spread of Christianity among the masses. They included a
Bengali Brahmin Joguth Chunder Gungooly who had been
ordained at Boston on 16 June 1860 by American Unitarians. He
spent six months in England and visited Mary Carpenter at the
Red Lodge at Christmas.'3 When the British allowed the Indians
to hold higher positions in the colonial administration under the
Indian Civil Service Act of 1861, among the first batch of students
who appeared for competitive examination in London was Man-
mohan Ghosh. He was able to accompany Mary Carpenter on her
voyage to India where she spent three years and greatly influenced
the education of Indian women. As Saywell notes, “The Mary
Carpenter Hall attached to the Brahmo Girls School in Calcutta
was a memoriai to her support for the education of women in
India”.1* Among the numerous Indians Mary met in Bengal was

11. Percival Spear, The Oxford History of Modern India 1740-1975, 1978 Delhi,
p.289.

12. Bishop Norman Carr Sargant, Mary Carpenter in India, 1985 Bristol (An
unpublished manuscript in Bristol Record Office). Also see his ‘Mary
Carpenter of Bristol (1807-1877) and her connection with India through Ram
Mohan Roy, K.C. Sen and the National Indian Association’ in Church
History Review, Volume XII, No 2, 1978, pp.121-133.

13. Bishop Norman Carr Sargant, 1985, op.cit., p.39.

14. Ruby J. Saywell, Mary Carpenter of Bristol, 1964 Bristol, p.19.

if

Keshub Chunder Sen whose life was going to influence the Datta
family and their break from the traditional and orthodox Hindu
fold.

After Roy, the most notable person to visit Mary Carpenter was
Keshub Chunder Sen. When he came to England, he was bound to
pay a visit to the monument Dwarkanath Tagore had erected in
memory of Roy. As he had already met Mary Carpenter in India,
the combination of these two factors was to bring him to Bristol
which he visited twice, in June and September 1870.

When Keshub Chunder Sen came to Bristol in June 1870, Mary
Carpenter received him at the Red Lodge. He preached a sermon
at Lewins Mead Meeting House and visited Roy’s grave at Arnos
Vale. Mary also arranged for him to present his views on Brahmo
Samaj and Christianity at a meeting arranged at Red Lodge which
was attended by 150 guests. It was proposed at this meeting that an
association, which Keshub Chunder Sen would cooperate with,
should be formed to help Indians to better their lot.!° Sen agreed
to assist such an association and also urged his audience to support
the education of women in India.'©

On his second visit to Bristol on 9 September 1870, Keshub
Chunder Sen witnessed the inauguration of the Bristol Indian
Association which was not in any way connected to the Associa-
tion which the Bristol Indians were going to form in 1947. The
founding members of this late nineteenth century association
proposed the following objectives for the association:

“To promote by voluntary effort the enlightenment and
improvement of their countrymen.

To extend our knowledge of India, and interest in her
throughout our country.

To cooperate with enlightened natives of India in their
efforts for improvement of their countrymen.

To obtain parliamentary action where necessary.

To show kind attentions to young natives of India who were
in Great Britain for their education” .!”

The General Committee of the Association identified the ‘wants’

15. Prem Sunder Basu, Keshub Chunder Sen in England, 1871 Calcutta (1980
Reprint), p.277.

16. Ibid., p.277.

17. Ibid., p.434.

of India as being the education of masses and of women, sanitary
improvements, improvements of discipline in prisons and the
establishment of juvenile reformatories, and the promotion of
friendly relationship with Indians in England. On 24 March 1871 it
was decided that the Association should have a London branch
which was called the National Indian Association. The organi-
sation was to last for fifty years. Mary Carpenter had hoped that
Keshub Chunder Sen would form a branch of the Association in
Calcutta. Instead he established a separate body called the Indian
Reform Association. This precluded further collaboration
between him and Mary Carpenter.

Another member of Brahmo Samaj to visit Bristol during this
period was Sashipada Banerjee. He had travelled to Birmingham,
Walsall, Manchester, Bolton and Liverpool to address meetings.
He and his wife visited Mary Carpenter in 1871 at the Red Lodge
where Banerjee’s wife gave birth to ason. As Rozina Visram notes
“In the words of the Journal of the National Indian Association,
‘as this is the first Brahmin subject of Her Majesty Queen Victoria
born on British ground, he bears the name Albion in comme-
moration of this event’”.!®

Another nineteenth-century visitor to the West country was
Sukhsagar Datta’s father Dwijadas Datta. He was also influenced
by Brahmo Samaj and, like many educated middle-class Bengalis,
he broke away from the traditional Hindu community.

According to his son’s biographical notes,!? Dwijadas Datta was
born into the famous Datta family of Kalikutch, Tripura in Bengal
in 1856 just before the Indian mutiny. His father Gangadas, who
was a tax collector, was disappointed that the mutiny had failed to
free India from British rule. He therefore decided to give up
everything and use his wealth for religious purposes. As he spent
sixty thousand rupees from tax receipts for religious services, the
landlord confiscated much of his land and property. Dwijadas
grew up in Kalikutch. Although he had left school after a teacher
had caned him, he proved himself to be a bright student. He
studied away from home at Dhaka to prepare for a University
entrance examination. It was then through Mr. Nandi that he
began to attend religious services at the local Brahmo Samaj
temple. When his father learned about his involvement in Brahmo

18. Rozina Visram, op.cit., p.172.
19. Ullaskar Datta’s undated biographical notes in Bengali. I am thankful to
Pabitra Ghosh for his English translation of these notes.

9

Samaj, he was deeply disturbed. To express his disapproval, he
compelled Dwijadas to sit and eat separately from rest of the
family to indicate that he had incurred the stigma of pollution by
participating in a movement opposed to Hinduism. His mother
Shivsundari had to destroy all the earthen pots used for cooking
food for the son who had become defiled. When Dwijadas fell in
love with Mr. Nandi’s thirteen-year old daughter Muktakeshi, his
father was horrified. On the day when the couple was due to
marry, Gangadas gave a good hiding to his son and locked him up.
Dwijadas managed to escape with Mr. Nandi’s assistance and
married Muktakeshi according to Brahmo Samaj rituals. Ganga-
das disowned him and expelled him from the family fold. How-
ever, in the later years, Dwijadas was able to reestablish his link
with the family. Conversion to Brahmo Samaj had greatly influ-
enced Dwijadas’s thinking. He developed a secular and rational
outlook which was reconciled to the teaching from the Vedas and
Upanishads as embodied in the precepts of Brahmo Samaj.
Subsequently, he obtained two first-class M.A. degrees from
Calcutta University and secured a scholarship from the Imperial
Government to study agriculture in England. He joined the Royal
College of Agriculture in Cirencester in 1886 for a two-year course
of study. As an old man, Dwijadas was to remind his son
Sukhsagar that he had visited Bristol and that he could still
remember Clifton Suspension Bridge! It is most likely that Dwija-
das lived in England after 1888. In his book Rig Veda Unveiled he
refers to a conversation in 1889 that he had about Keshub Chunder
Sen with Max Miiller, then a Professor of Sanskrit at Oxford.?°
Upon his return to India, Dwijadas held various posts. He was a
lecturer at Bethune College in Calcutta; then principal of Shibpore
Engineering College and lastly a deputy magistrate.

The list of books he published clearly demonstrates that he was
a good scholar of Sanskrit and Persian.”! In his Peasant Proprie-
torship in India and Landlordism in India Dwijadas showed his
grasp of historical method and his knowledge of the sources
relating to peasant proprietorship. Using both Hindu and Islamic
sources, he argued that historically it was the cultivating peasant

20. Dwijadas Datta, Rigveda Unveiled, 1934.

21. These are as follows: 1 Rigveda Unveiled (1934) 2 Lectures on Vedantism
and Vedanta. 3 Purusa-Sukta. 4 Behold the Man — a reminiscence of Brah-
mananda Keshub Chunder Sen. 5 Peasant Proprietorship in India (1933)
6 Landlordism in India (1931).

10

who was the proprietor of land. Landlordism should be abolished
and the peasants should set up cooperatives to organise produc-
tion. In his Rig Veda Unveiled he argued that this ancient text did
not legitimate the status of untouchables nor did it provide for a
hierarchical caste system. Asserting the unity of religions, he
concluded, “true Christianity, true Islam and true Hinduism are in
essence one”, and he established a Hall of Harmony of Religions
at Comilla on 10 October 1931.7

Dwijadas Datta had five children in all. There were three sons
and two daughters. The sons were Mohini Mohan, Ullaskar and
Sukhsagar. Resistance to British colonial rule was to play a crucial
part in Sukhsagar Datta’s visit to England and his permanent
settlement in Bristol. To understand this, it is important to
examine Sukhsagar’s elder brother Ullaskar and his activities
which influenced Sukhsagar’s move to Britain in about 1907.

At the beginning of what Percival Spear describes as “the Indian
Edwardian era”? in 1900 a limited segment of the middle-class
population was influenced by Indian nationalism. There were a
number of events which extended the scope of nationalism among
the middle classes. As W.H. Moreland and Atul Chaterjee note,
the British suffered defeats in the earlier part of the Boer War
between 1899-1902 and the Indians began to see British rule as
less invincible than before. Many regarded Japanese military
successes against Russia (1904-1905) as being the victory of Asia
over Europe.** When Lord Curzon partitioned Bengal in 1905 to
improve the efficiency of administration, middle class Bengalis saw
this as dismemberment of their motherland. Resentment against
partition combined with the pressure of middle class unem-
ployment” generated political agitation which in turn led to the
boycott of British goods. This encouraged the Swadeshi movement
which demanded that the Indians should only use things made in
India. As Percival Spear has observed, combination of these issues
“served to draw the new class together and to create a new sense of
unity and common purpose”.*° The Congress Party which had
been founded in 1885 rapidly grew in stature and soon found itself

22. Dwijadas Datta, Rigveda Unveiled, 1934, p.341.
23. Percival Spear, op.cit., p.338.

24. W.H. Moreland and Atul Chandra Chaterjee, A Short History of India,
London 1945, p.429.

25. Ibid., p.449.
26. Percival Spear, op.cit., p.338.

A

in a state of tension between moderates who demanded greater
autonomy through constitutional changes and extremists who were
prepared to put up uncompromising opposition to government
through the use of violence if necessary. Radical leader like Bal
Gangadhar Tilak supported the idea of political change through
violence. Many of his followers, some of whom were progressive
and high-caste Chitpavan Brahmins of Maharashtra, were pre-
pared to use violence for political ends.?7

The revolutionary movement in Bengal commenced when
Barindra Kumar Ghosh, who was born in England in 1880, came
to Calcutta. Barindra’s social background was distinctively middle
class as his father was a medical officer and his brother had
obtained a first-class degree in the classical tripos at Cambridge
University. When Bengalis were agitating against partition, Barin-
dra aimed at organising a violent revolutionary movement to
overthrow the British government in India. He appealed mainly to
students of upper middle class background and he began recruiting
in order to train his followers in the use of arms and explosives. As
he subsequently stated in his trial, “We were always thinking of a
far off revolution and wish to be ready for it, so we were collecting
weapons in small quantities. Altogether I have collected 11
revolvers, 4 rifles and 1 gun. Among other young men who came
to be admitted to our circle was Ullaskar Datta. He said that he
wanted to come among us and be useful, he had learned the
preparation of explosives. He had a small laboratory in his house
without his father’s knowledge and he experimented there. I never
saw it. He told me of it. With his help, we began preparing
explosives in small quantities in the garden house at 32 Murari-
pukur Road”. His associate Upendra Nath also stated, “I knew
that Barindra, Ullaskar and Hem were engaged in manufacturing
bombs with a view to do away with the lives of those Government
officials who by repressive measures hampered our work, viz., the
Lieutenant-Governor and Mr. Kingsford”?® who was an unpopular
magistrate.

Ullaskar Datta had been born on 16 April 1886 in the village of
Kalikutch in Tripura district now in Bangladesh. After passing his
matriculation examination in Sibpore in 1903, he joined the

27. S.A.T. Rowlatt, Sedition Committee 1918 Report, 1918 Calcutta, Superiri-
tendant, Government Printing, India. See Chapter 1 ‘Revolutionary conspi-

racies in Bombay’.
28. Ibid., p.20.

12

Presidency College in Calcutta. An incident at the college radically
changed him just before he was due to take his examinations. An
English professor by the name of Dr Russell made some deroga-
tory and insulting remarks about Indians in Ullaskar’s class.
Ullaskar reacted defiantly and criticised the British. In protest, he
gave up his European-style clothing and began to live like an
ordinary simple Bengali. His father and family urged him to sit for
his examinations, but Ullaskar would accept no compromises. The
family and friends persuaded him to study textile technology in
Bombay. Such a study was compatible with the aims of Swadeshi
movement which encouraged and supported the local Indian
manufacture. At the same time Ullaskar observed that colonial
police ill-treated Indians and frequently imprisoned them, and this
convinced him that he had to make his contribution to free India
from British rule. In his own biographical notes he made later in
his life? Ullaskar describes how his father gave him five hundred
rupees to be used for a good cause and how he handed over this
amount to Barindra Kumar Ghosh who led a revolutionary group
called Yugantar. Ullaskar gave up his study in Bombay and
became an active member of this group. As his biographer
Sobhana Nandi has noted, fun-loving and gregarious Ullaskar
changed and became more grave and introspective. Once while he
was away from home, his younger brother Sukhsagar discovered a
metal ball under the bed in Ullaskar’s bedroom. He picked it up
and threw it at a nearby tree causing a terrific explosion and much
smoke. The matter was hushed up but the family now knew that
Ullaskar was dealing with explosives.*°

Barindra Kumar Ghosh and his associates including Ullaskar
were arrested on 2 May 1908 at Muraripukur Garden House for
making the explosives which had accidentally killed Mrs. Kennedy
and Miss Kennedy instead of Mr. Kingsford for whom it was
intended. They were all charged, as Ullaskar has put it in his
biography, “with conspiracy and waging war against the King
Emperor”.*! After a long trial known as Alipore Conspiracy case,
Ullaskar was sentenced to death. He refused to appeal against the

29. Ullaskar Datta’s undated biographical notes.

30. Shobhona Nandi, ‘Datta Ullaskar 1885-1965’ in S.P. Sen’s (ed.) Dictionary of
National Biographies, 1972, Calcutta, Institute of Historical Studies, pp.399-
401.

31. Ullaskar Datta, Twelve Years of Prison Life, 1924, Calcutta, p.292. See
publisher’s note.

13

death sentence as he was unwilling to accept the legitimacy of the
British judicial system. Barindra Kumar and the members of his
family finally persuaded him to change his mind to minimise
misery and suffering for other defendants. On appeal the sentence
was commuted to life imprisonment in the Andaman Islands. In
his autobiographical account Twelve Years of Prison Life Ullaskar
provides a sensitive and touching account of his long confinement
and the way rigorous labour and disciplinary punishment affected
his mind and body.

After the First World War, the Government of India declared a
general amnesty under which Ullaskar was released from prison.
He returned home but took no further part in politics in the years
before his death in 1965. However, he firmly held his belief in
revolution and viewed Gandhian politics of non-violence with
some contempt. He also refused to accept a Government of India
pension for those, who, like himself, had suffered during pre-
independence struggles. He did not believe that a price tag could
be attached to the sacrifices he and others had made for freedom.

Ullaskar’s association with Barindra Kumar Ghosh and his
involvement in revolutionary activities greatly affected the destiny
of the Datta family. Dwijadas Datta was promptly retired without
pension as the authorities assumed that he had known about the
‘terroristic’ activities of his son. Later on, when it was proved that
he knew nothing of such activities, his pension was restored, but
he was not employed again in the government service. Ullaskar’s
elder brother Mohini Mohan was in the United States studying
agriculture when these events afflicted the family. He was
promised a government post upon his return, but when he got
back, no job was waiting for him. Apparently, he had sent some
Chemistry books to Ullaskar, who, it was believed, had used them
for making explosives. Although Mohini Mohan was unaware of
his brother’s involvement in anti-government agitation, the
authorities thought otherwise. To support himself and his family,
Mohini Mohan started a business with his father’s assistance.

Sukhsagar Datta who was born in 1890 was scarcely beyond his
teens when his brother Ullaskar whom he greatly admired was sent
to serve his long prison sentence in the Andaman Islands. As he
was living at the same boarding house where Ullaskar was
arrested, his mother Muktakeshi feared that the police would
arrest him as well. To ensure his safety, she gave him some money
and asked him to leave for England. After travelling to Delhi,
young Sukhsagar was homesick and returned to Calcutta. Far from

14

being pleased to see him, Muktakeshi was distressed and said to
him, “Please go away to England. I do not wish to lose another son
to British Raj”. Accepting his mother’s plea, Sukhsagar Datta
travelled to England some time between 1908 and 1910.

In London Sukhsagar Datta came in contact with one of the
members of the Bloomsbury group*? which included Keynes,
Strachey and E.M. Forster as well as the writer David Garnett
who recalls his first meeting with Datta,** who called himself Dutt
at this time, at the London Tutorial College: “I first noticed a
brown young man with a head of luxuriant black ringlets”.*4
Garnett thought Sukhsagar was a Madagascan. Sukhsagar and
David became friendly and David was invited to tea at 140 Sinclair
Road in Shepherds Bush where he met Sukhsagar’s companions
Naranjan Pal, Ashutosh Mitter and Bepin Chandra Pal. They met
regularly and became sufficiently friendly for David Garnett to
know that Sukhsagar’s brother was involved in the Alipore
Conspiracy case and that the bomb he had made killed two English
ladies. As Garnett explains, although Sukhsagar wished to oppose
British rule in India, the death of two English women and the
assassination of others along with Ullaskar’s long imprisonment
had “set Dutt profoundly against terrorists and terrorism at a time
when the awakening nationalism was expressing itself in a spasmo-
dic series of murders” .?°

Garnett also informs us that Sukhsagar had been instructed to
read for the bar “but the idea was repugnant to him”.*© Instead he
wanted to become an actor so that he could eventually set up his
own theatre company in India to stage European plays in vernacu-
lar languages.

Sukhsagar Datta knew a fair number of nationalists and revolu-
tionaries who had made London their temporary home to propagate
the cause of Indian independence or to seek refuge from the British
Indian authorities. One such a nationalist was Shyamji Krish-
navarma, a native of Kathiawar in Gujarat, who came to Britain

32. Margaret Drabble (ed.), The Oxford Companion to English Literature, 1985,
Oxford, p.110.

33. David Garnett, The Golden Echo 1953, London, p.272. See Chapter 7 which
describes David Garnett’s encounter with Indians in London at the turn of
this century.

34. Ibid., p.140.
35. Ibid., p.140.
36. Ibid., p.140.

15

Sukhsagar Datta, aged about 17.

Photograph supplied by David Datta

16

and started in London the India Home Rule Society of which he was
the President. The Society published journal called the Jndian
Sociologist to publicise home rule for India and for “carrying
genuine propaganda in England by all practical means”.*” Its base
was India House in London and the authorities regarded it as a
notorious centre of sedition.

In July 1907, the government was asked in the House of
Commons whether it proposed to take any action against Krish-
navarma, who left for Paris from where he continued his cam-
paign. Sukhsagar Datta certainly knew Krishnavarma and India
House, and after a member of the India House group had
assassinated Colonel Sir William Curzon Wyllie at the Imperial
Institute in London in mistake for Lord Curzon, the police closed
India House and shadowed all those associated with it including
Sukhsagar Datta.

After the India House episode, Sukhsagar shared accommo-
dation with the Indian nationalist Savarkar in what Garnett
describes as “an extremely dirty Indian restaurant in Red Lion
Passage”.>® Savarkar persuaded Sukhsagar and his friend to help
Abdul Krim of the Riff tribe in Morocco which was resisting the
Spanish occupation of their lands. Sukhsagar borrowed a Winches-
ter rifle from David Garnett, but it was impounded by custom
officials at Gibraltar. He then went on to Algiers but was unable to
reach the Riffs and returned discouraged to England. Savarkar’s
brother had been implicated in an assassination in India and
Sukhsagar decided that he wanted no more to do with him or any
of his group.”

Some time in 1910-11 Sukhsagar met Ruby Young of Bristol.
Ruby had grown up in a strict puritanical Seventh Day Adventist
household in the St. Pauls district of Bristol. It seems probable
that she decided to break away from the strict background in
which she had been brought up and left Bristol for London where
she met Sukhsagar either at a boarding house or in Red Lion
Square. The meeting was one of love at first sight, followed by
romantic courting. Subsequently the couple registered their mar-
riage. It is during this phase that Sukhsagar appears to have
revived his interest in dramatics. Under the influence of the

37. S.A.T. Rowlatt, op.cit., p.5 describes activities of Indian students in London
at the turn of this century.

38. David Garnett, op.cit., p.148.

39. Ibid., p.141.

17

puog piavg q payddns ydvssojoyd

‘CI6L °O ‘plaeq pure uoIg;y suos sIy ‘Kqny aim siy ‘eyed sJesesyyns

7

=
>.

18

Garnett family, he had been introduced to a wide range of
European culture encompassing arts, sciences and philosophy.
Ruby was also keenly interested in music and played the piano.
Having been deeply impressed and moved by the beauty of Italian
operatic singing, Sukhsagar decided that he should learn this art in
Italy. He and Ruby then travelled to Milan and he joined the
school run by the famous singing teacher Maestro Sabatini while
Ruby worked for Fratelli Miinster to support them. After a time,
Sukhsagar decided that he was unlikely to develop a level of skill
in singing demanded by the opera master and the critical Italian
audience. He gave up operatic singing. His decision to leave Italy
for England may have been influenced by the fact that Ruby was
pregnant and expecting their first child. Although Sukhsagar was
not successful in fulfilling his theatrical ambition, the training in
operatic singing was to prove an asset in the political speeches he
was going to deliver in Bristol.

Ruby Young brought Sukhsagar Datta to her parents’ house-
hold in St. Pauls in Bristol. Her family warmly accepted him and
helped him to make progress in education and become involved in
politics. Ullaskar’s life imprisonment had deeply influenced
Sukhsagar and he had a passionate commitment to seeing India
become an independent nation.

Ruby’s parents and grandparents came from a Gloucestershire
farming background and ran a dairy in Picton Street, Montpelier
where they lived in Ashley Road. Although the family followed a
rigid code of behaviour, the sisters were to follow a less conven-
tional path. Ruby had already taken a bold step in marrying
Sukhsagar. One of her sisters married an Afro-Caribbean friend of
Sukhsagar from Jamaica who was engaged in technical training in
Bristol. She eventually left England to make Jamaica her per-
manent home. Ruby’s younger sister married Pastor Sammy
Joyce, an Ulsterman who ended up leading the Seventh Day
Adventist church in California. There is no doubt that Ruby’s
family became very fond of Sukhsagar. Being rural folk, the family
had never been involved in colonial or imperial service and were
not racists. They liked Sukhsagar and supported him and Ruby
until they were able to establish their own independent household.

Sukhsagar Datta was now concerned about acquiring formal
qualifications which could enable him to find satisfactory work in
Bristol. To pursue his educational aims, he joined the Merchant
Venturers’ Technical College in 1913 or 1914. As a relatively older
student in a final class, he passed his University of Bristol

12

Matriculation examination in 1914 having studied Mathematics,
English Grammar and Composition, Italian, Physics and
Chemistry. Then he joined University of Bristol Medical School in
the following year to read for a degree in medicine. He was
admitted to Medical School on 26 April 1915, passed his final
examination in 1919 and formally qualified as a doctor by 22
October 1920. Later in the twenties, he studied for an M.D. in
medicine and qualified in 1931. Subsequently he was one of the
first to do an examination for a new Diploma in Psychiatric
Medicine as psychiatry had become professionally acceptable to
the General Medical Council.

From the family records, it is certain that Dr. Datta had joined
Bristol General Hospital as a House Physician in 1920 at the time
when Indian doctors were rare in British medical practice. In a
letter of recommendation for Sukhsagar, W.H.G. Newham of
Bristol described him as my “gynaecological clerk” and as being a
good worker when he applied for the post of Assistant Medical
Officer at Southmead Poor Law Institution. The Assistant Medical
Officer was also required to be resident at Stapleton Institution
(now Manor Park Hospital) “in which there will be about 600
imbeciles and a few chronic aged infirm cases”. The post carried a
handsome remuneration of £300 per annum including furnished
room, board and washing facility. Dr. Datta joined Southmead
Infirmary in 1921 and worked there till 1922. Then he became a
Senior Medical Officer at Manor Park Hospital until his retirement
in 1956. In her pamphlet on Manor Park Hospital, Jean Nelson
noted that “For many years, Dr. Datta was the only doctor
responsible for the care of those in Stapleton Institution,
Downend Children’s home and Snowdon Road Children’s home.
He lived in a house opposite the main gate and an ambulant
patient did his housework”.*? Dr. Datta must have undertaken a
wide range of medical work. During the war period, he once
narrowly escaped from death from a German Messerschmitt which
crashed near his office in the grounds of Manor Park Hospital.*4

Sukhsagar also found time to offer his medical skills to the wider
Bristol comimunity on a voluntary basis through St. John’s
Ambulance Brigade. A letter written to the Datta family by a
Brigade official shows that Sukhsagar began serving the Brigade in

40. Jean Nelson, A History of Manor Park Hospital : 150 Years of Caring, Bristol,
1982, see p.8 in particular.

41. David Datta’s letter to Bristol Evening Post, 4 October 1986.

20

1937 when Indira Gandhi, who was to become the future Prime
Minister of India, had come to Bristol in the same year to join
Badminton School. Sukhsagar continued to assist the Brigade well
beyond his official retirement date. As his Brigade associate Mr.
George Creech recalled, “I knew Dr. Datta as a surgeon who had
played an active part in the Civil Defense measures the
government had introduced during the war period. Dr. Datta had
taken full part in anti-gas measures and had trained hundreds of
Bristol men and women in application of First Aid and was known
to thousands for his work”.*? Mr. Creech also recalled Sukhsagar’s
warm and friendly disposition which made him very popular. He
was the First Divisional Superintendent and Surgeon of the
Transport and Cleansing Ambulance Division of the Brigade. In
1949 he became the surgeon of Fishponds Ambulance Division
and three years later on 26 July 1951 the Brigade honoured him
with the award of Serving Brother. In 1959 he became Officer
Brother of St. John, an award which recognised his lifelong
dedication to the work of St. John’s Ambulance Brigade.

Since the days of Ullaskar’s involvement in the Bengal civil
disobedience movement and his confinement in prison, Sukhsagar
had committed himself to the goal of Indian independence. His
association with Indian nationalists in London at the turn of the
century was an indication of his own deeply felt passion for
freedom of India. From the beginning, like many Indians, Sukhsa-
gar believed that the British Labour movement was more likely to
be sympathetic to the idea of an independent India than any other
British political party. The Russian revolution had provided a
powerful stimulus to socialist thinking at the time, and Sukhsagar
seems to have been committed to such a philosophical position
from the earliest phase of his political development. In the early
twenties in Bristol, he was already familiar with theoretical ideas
of Marx, Engels and Lenin. In addition to his study of Marx’s
Capital and Selected Correspondence of Marx and Engels, he had
also studied Engels’s Feuerbach : The Roots of the Socialist
Philosophy and Marx’s The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bona-
parte. He was familiar with Lenin’s biography and had carefully
studied R. Palme Dutt’s India Today when it first appeared in
1940. His detailed notes in his copy of this book shows that he had
immersed himself in the analysis of capitalist development in
India. He also read Freud as well as Jung, Adler and other

42. Mr. George Creech’s personal communication to the author in 1986.

21

Sukhsagar Datta in the uniform of an Officer Brother of the St.
John’s Ambulance Corps.

Photograph supplied by David Datta

ae

psychoanalysts. With this pattern of political thinking, it is not
surprising that he joined the Labour Party in 1926 to advance his
political influence. He took an active part in the Bristol Labour
Party both to advance socialist politics in Britain and to argue for
Indian independence. He became the Chairman of Bristol North
Labour Party*® in 1946 and subsequently rose to the rank of
Chairman of Bristol Borough Labour Party. In 1946-47, he
became the President of the Bristol Trades Council.and at one
stage led the Cooperative Party as its first President.

As well as participating actively in the Labour Movement, Dr.
Datta also joined the London-based India League in 1930s. In
1932, Krishna Menon had transformed the Commonwealth of
India League, inspired by the theosophist Annie Beasant, into the
India League which was then openly and militantly committed to
complete independence for India.** Supported by leading and
progressive members of the Labour Party, the India League
became an official arm of the Indian National Congress to mobilise
British support for Indian independence. Dr. Datta maintained
close association with the India League and Krishna Menon who
frequently visited Bristol. A Bhattra Sikh, Giani Shree Ratan
Singh Shad, who had come to Britain in 1936 and was later to
settle in Bristol, recalls meeting Dr. Datta at Hyde Park rallies of
India League where he often spoke to advance the cause of
freedom of India. As a Chairman of Bristol Borough Labour
Party, Dr. Datta had known a number of leading Labour politi-
cians including Sir Stafford Cripps whom he had met locally in
Bristol and for whose election to the Parliament he had cam-
paigned.

Dr. Datta was very much an internationalist at heart. Although
freedom of India was one of his main concerns, his political work
in Bristol was not restricted to campaigning for Indian indepen-
dence only. Asa lively member of the party, he spoke on local and
national issues at political rallies on Clifton Downs. He led
marches with Trade Unionists and actively helped Labour suppor-
ters from Wales who were marching to London in 1930s. He often
loaned his car to union officials to enable them to perform their
duties speedily and efficiently. The Labour Party in Bristol was a

43. The Bristol Labour Weekly, 23.2.1946.
44. Marie Seton, Panditji : A Portrait of Jawaharlal Nehru, 1967 London. See
pp.60-61.

23

lively, vibrant and active organisation both during the depression
years and in the war period. Past issues of the Bristol Labour
Weekly demonstrate this clearly. Sukhsagar often wrote for the
Weekly and his short articles show that his interests were wide and
diverse. For example, in 1944, he reviewed the American election
to explain Dewey’s defeat, arguing that the American Labour
movement had played a decisive part in Roosevelt’s victory.”
Once he also wrote an analytical article to show that Marx clearly
distinguished between communism and socialism in relation to
inequality of wages.*°

As the momentum for Indian independence was gathering in
India and Britain, Dr. Datta had his most important opportunity
to influence this cause. Having stimulated interest in Indian
independence in the local Labour Movement, he was successful in
asking the local party to support a National Union of Rail-
waymen’s resolution at the 1944 National Conference of the
Labour Party. The NUR representative Mr. C.W. Bridges moved
the following:

“This conference, being of the opinion that the granting of
freedom to the people of India to establish an Independent Indian
National Government will be a decisive factor in the fight against
Fascism and towards the unification of all anti-Fascist forces, urges
the immediate ending of political deadlock by negotiation with all
leaders of the Indian people with a view to the formation of
responsible national government which will rally the entire
population of India to the anti-Facist cause. With a view to
facilitating the negotiations we call for the release of the Indian
political leaders” .*’

Dr. Sukhsagar Datta seconded this historic resolution and in a
moving speech urged the Party Executive to support it. First, he
reminded the conference that three years earlier the National
Executive had adopted a policy that the Indians must be given full
responsibility at the centre and in the provinces and pointed out
that Executive’s demand in the statement had not been followed
up. In his passionate appeal to the National Conference, Sukhsa-
gar concluded his speech with the following remarks: “I ask you to

45. The Bristol Labour Weekly, 2.12.1944.

46. The Bristol Labour Weekly, 20.1.1945.

47. The Labour Party Annual Report, 1944, Report of the Annual Conference
held in the Central Hall, Westminster, SW1, December 11th to December
15th 1944, 1944, London, Transport House, pp.185-189.

24

support this resolution and I appeal to the Executive to support it.
I have a feeling of the greatest gratitude to the Chairman for the
words he uttered in his Presidential address. Those words will
leave their impress on my mind everlastingly. He said, ‘India is a
vast prison house’ and he also said, ‘The key to the opening of that
prison house is in Downing Street’. With his permission, I will
make just this modification: today, when Labour stands at the
threshold of power, the key to the unlocking of that prison house is
lying on the floor of this conference. You, as men who stand by the
faith which you profess, who stand for the brotherhood of men,
irrespective of colour and race, you should take up that magic key,
you have the power to unlock those gates”.*®

With this moving plea Sukhsagar Datta deeply impressed the
Conference. This resolution along with a similar resolution by Mr.
J. Stanely of the Constructional Engineering Union subdued any
opposition and greatly furthered the cause of Indian indepen-
dence. After nearly half a century of a struggle which had seen the
long imprisonment of his brother Ullaskar, the successful accept-
ance of these resolutions was the most important achievement for
Dr. Datta. In the Bristol Labour Weekly of 23 December 1944,
Jim Baty paid a special tribute to Sukhsagar for his “finest speech”
which enhanced the prestige of the Borough Party. For Sukhsagar,
it was participation in a political process which was to see the
fulfilment of a cherished dream of Indian independence.

On 15 August 1947 India became an independent nation. For
Sukhsagar Datta, this was one of the most important days in his
life, a feeling which many of his Indian and English friends shared.
To mark the freedom of India after more than a century of colonial
rule, Dr. Datta and his Indian and British friends founded the
Bristol Indian Association.*? A ceremonial dinner at the Grand
Hotel in Bristol marked the birth of the Association. A number of
middle class Indians, some married to English women, joined the
Association. The Indian members were Mr. and Mrs. Godivala,
Dr. Prakash Mediratta, Professor M.G.K. Menon, recently a
scientific adviser to the Prime Minister of India, Mr. Sen, Mr. and
Mrs. Sanyasi, Mr. and Mrs. Ahluwalia, Dr. and Mrs. Mohan and a

48. Ibid., p.186.

49. Peter Hardie (ed.), Rammohan Roy: Commemoration of 150th Anniversary
of his Death in Bristol on 27th September 1833, 1983 Bristol, Bristol Indian
Association provides an outline of events the Association had organised to
celebrate the 150th anniversary of Raja Rammohan Roy’s death in the city.

23

fair number of Indian students resident in Bristol. For Sukhsagar
Datta, the Association marked the independence of India for
which he and numerous Indian nationalists and their British
supporters had struggled for more than fifty years.

Since 1947, the Bristol Indian Association has remained a lively
organisation. In its formation, it encompassed the deep concern
Sukhsagar and others had felt for the independence of India on the
one hand and issues which were increasingly going to affect the
social life of migrants from India to Bristol, who unlike Sukhsagar
and his associates, were responding to a stimulus causing mass
migration to postwar Britain. In spanning these two dimensions,
the Association has made a transition from being a middle class
body to being an association which has recruited members from a
wider social spectrum, thus reflecting the changing pattern of
migration to Bristol before and after the Second World War. As
for the present development of the Association beyond the life
span of Dr. Datta, it is obvious that different phases of migration
to Bristol from the subcontinent as well as from East and Central
Africa have influenced it. The nature of this influence and its
consequences forms a separate chapter in the history of the Indian
population in Bristol.

Sukhsagar remained Life President of the Bristol and Indian
Association. He retired from work in 1956 and having been away
from India for more than half a century, he went on six months’
tour of India with Ruby to see for himself the social and political
reality of free India. The notes he made during his journey show
that he was looking at the subcontinent in terms of ideas and
concepts formed during his long experience of Labour politics. He
saw the new nation facing numerous problems and struggling to
maintain cohesion. He felt that secularism and a common lan-
guage combined with modern economic development could pro-
vide a firm basis for the nation. In his notes he says “Fifty years
ago, the dream of a free Indian nation seemed to be just a cry of
the heart. Here I am treading the soil of free India by the side of
my wife”.°° No doubt, apart from realisation of Ullaskar’s dream
to see India free, a unique moment of history was being captured
in Sukhsagar and Ruby’s visit to India.

In his retirement, both Sukhsagar and Ruby took up ballroom
dancing under the auspices of the Imperial Society of Dancing

50. From a set of personal notes Dr. Sukhsagar Datta kept during his visit to
India.

26

Incorporated at Stoke Bishop and District Dance Club. They were
awarded the Bronze Medal for the level of excellence they had
achieved. Dr. Datta also undertook the study of Sanskrit and
comparative religion compiling a volume of notes on Hinduism,
Zorostrianism and Buddhism. Whether this interest in the subject
was influenced by the final stage of life when the Hindus often turn
their attention to religious matters or by scholarly curiosity is
difficult to establish. After a brief illness, Sukhsagar Datta died on
3 November 1967 at the age of 76 in Bristol.

To sum up, both historians and sociologists who focus on race
and ethnic relations in Britain will find that a biography such as
this, rooted in history, is likely to enhance our understanding of
the Indian presence in Britain. Some scholars and students assume
that the settlement of Asians and Afro-Caribbeans is essentially a
post-war phenomenon. This assumption in contemporary account
of British Indians often masks the fact that Indians were coming to
Britain throughout the course of nineteenth century and that
individuals like Sukhsagar Datta with a middle class background
and cosmopolitan outlook were permanently settling in Britain. In
view of this pattern, any historically minded sociologist or a social
anthropologist has to revise his chronological concept of Indian
settlement in Britain so that the course of his inquiry does not
remain artificially confined to recent mass migration only. To
explain the British settlement of individuals like Dr. Datta, one
has to take a perspective from which to study the effects of British
rule in India and the nature of interaction between Britons and
Indians. In this relationship, one can also trace a _ historical
continuity, and, as in this instance, a link between Bengalis and
Bristolians spanning a good part of nineteenth century. As this
biographical sketch illustrates, opposition to British rule in India
arises aS an important element in stimulating Sukhsagar Datta’s
move to London and his eventual settlement in Bristol. His
political desire to see India free and independent draws him to
politics and to the Labour Party. Formation of the Bristol Indian
Association marked freedom for India for everyone concerned
irrespective of their national or ethnic origin. Although Indians
played a leading part in the development of Bristol Indian
Association, many Bristolians of English origin were involved in
its activities, thus giving it a more universal character. Within the
Association, the relationship between its Indian and non-Indian
members alike was more clearly distinguished by a common social
class background than by considerations of ethnic affiliation. The

af

fact that many Indians including Dr. Datta were married to
English women helped to emphasise the relatively non-ethnic
nature of this voluntary association. As the post-war migration
began to stimulate the creation of well-defined primary groups,
factors of ethnic origin later began to bear on activities of the
Association. This biographical account shows that the trans-
formation of India and the changes in the historical relationship
between India and Britain were mirrored in the lives of individuals
like Dr Datta and their sentiments in turn were extended to the
activities of the Bristol Indian Association.

28

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one pamphlet and 15p for each additional one.

Produced by Alan Sutton Publishing Limited.

BRISTOL BRANCH OF THE

HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION

THE UNIVERSITY, BRISTOL
Price £1.25 1988

ISBN 0 901388 53 X